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You'd be hard pressed to find a more
label-conscious society than Hong Kong, where you can instantly identify a
woman's place in the social pecking order by the bag on her arm. Leather bags
by Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo, Gucci, and Hermes have long been a staple for
Hong Kong's "tai tais" [ladies of leisure] and Canto starlets, and
more recently mainland Chinese tourists have been making a bee-line for these
luxury houses during shopping sprees to the city.
 
FASHION TRENDS &
SHOPPING
ROME - Many people think of Italians as free and
easygoing people unbound by rules and hang-ups. This is true of things like
traffic lights where red simply means slow down and take a look before racing
through the intersection. And it's true of riding the buses and trams where
it's considered a waste of money to buy a ticket when the officials hardly
ever check to see if you have one. But it's not true when it comes to certain
cultural traditions such as eating, drinking and even shopping.
Shopping is a deceptively simple activity. Most of us think we know how to
do it. But shopping in Rome can leave even the most confident card-carrying
Saks Fifth Avenue patron in a state of confused uncertainty.
People coming from North America, the land where the customer is king and
where the customer is always right, are frequently surprised to learn that in
Rome the customer is not only wrong but is frequently a dishonest idiot as
well.
"The Americans like to touch everything," says a clerk in an
Armani Jeans store. "They pick up everything and they do this," she
says, scurrying around rubbing the cloth of several sweaters and blouses
between her fingers in a show of great disgust.
During the summer months when the city hosts thousands and thousands of
tourists from afar, the clerks spend most of their working day trying to save
their beautiful displays of perfectly folded T-shirts and sweaters from being
ransacked by undisciplined shoppers. It sometimes seems as if the customers
are the greatest obstacle to the clerks getting their job done.
Most of these culture clashes begin because we don't understand the Italian
way of shopping. But all the shops -- from the vegetable market to the
drugstore -- have traditionally been run on a don't-touch basis. The correct
way to handle this situation is to ask the clerk to show you the sweaters, the
broccoli or the toilet paper. This is changing somewhat because of the
pressure from foreigners and is causing great confusion among Italian shoppers
who no longer know when to touch and when not to touch. It is also creating a
generation of resentful clerks who realize they are expected to tidy up.
One recent warm November afternoon, I accompanied a friend, Julia, visiting
from Toronto, on a shopping trip. In one clothing store near Campo de' Fiori,
Julia asked to try on a black lacy top. In Italy, it is important to be sure
everything fits and that it is in good condition before you buy it because
stores will never accept returns -- under any circumstances. "You cannot
try it," says the sales clerk standing in front of the curtained dressing
room. "You can only try on pants or skirts." And then he performed
an elaborate pantomime of putting on lipstick and mascara to illustrate his
reasoning.
Fresh-faced, clean-scrubbed Julia told him that she wouldn't buy the top if
she couldn't try it on. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say it was her
loss.
We moved on to the carnivalesque atmosphere of shops on and around Via Del
Corso that run from high-end Furla leather handbags to low-end plastic shoes.
We walked into one shop empty of other customers and found the sales clerk
reading a magazine and chain-smoking. Since she didn't look up when we came in
or respond to our "buongiorno," we figured it was safe to paw the
merchandise. Julia found a skirt and sweater she wanted to try on. She
apologized to the clerk for not speaking Italian and then asked her if she
spoke French or English. The clerk simply stared at her. So Julia pointed to
the dressing room and held up her potential purchases. The clerk still stared.
Finally, I asked in Italian if she could try them on. The clerk shrugged and
went back to her magazine.
We soon learned to ignore the sales clerks and do as we pleased, which left
some of them happily engaged in conversation and oblivious to us, and others
in a frenzy of disapproval as they followed us around refolding sweaters. And
then we decided to add some variety and we went into a pharmacy to look for
European shampoos and skin creams. We were met by a woman in a white lab coat
who asked us many questions and then brought jars of face cream out one at a
time from a locked cupboard behind a counter.
There were little displays of Band-Aids, diapers and diet milkshake drinks
to indicate the range of products the pharmacy had for sale, but if you wanted
to buy anything, you had to ask for it. We left empty-handed and frustrated at
not being able to see the full stock.
While still on Via Del Corso, Julia made an impulsive decision to look at
the clothes in a shop called Killah. Inside, there was a plastic floor with
lights underneath, three video screens showing a cartoon subtitled in Swedish
and blasting American rap music. The two young sales girls were dancing
together and singing along to the music happily shouting out the chorus in
their Italian accented English: "Why don't you f--- off, and f---in' die
and f---in' kill you-self."
As improbable as it seemed, Julia spotted quite a nice black dress among
the highly revealing little skirts and tops that were mostly emblazoned with
nostalgic images of childhood, like cartoon kittens and little ducks.
Frederica, one of the singing sales clerks, was happy to help with the size.
She pronounced Julia a babe in the dress and insisted she buy it, and she did.
While the second clerk wrapped up the dress and ran it through on Julia's
Visa card, they both entertained us with their linguistic abilities. Their
English was fairly limited to sizes and prices and the lyrics of American pop
songs, but in French they knew how to say "My name is," "How
are you?" and "You are a slut."
Julia signed her Visa slip, advised the girls that it was really better not
to swear in a foreign language, and we left. Later, she found a tiny pair of
purple jeans fit for a child or an anorexic teenager in the bag with the dress
and discovered that they had been added to her bill.
We returned to Killah the next day with the bill and the purple jeans. Both
sales girls remembered us and remembered the dress and they agreed it was
rather unlikely that Julia would have wanted size-two purple pants. They
agreed that it was clearly an accident but they explained it was impossible to
return them. Once they were paid for they were hers. "You should have
been watching me more carefully," said one.
As a generous offer, one she knew she was not really obliged to make, the
sales clerk told Julia that she could exchange them for something else. Julia
looked around at the pink miniskirts and the tiny orange sweaters and restated
that this was not her mistake. She asked again to have her money back.
After a tense phone call to the boss, one clerk reached into the cash
register, pulled out some bills and pressed them on Julia. Then she shoved us
angrily out the door.
I recounted this story later to a friendly saleswoman in a chic little
boutique in Trastevere. She was busily pulling dresses off the rack for me to
look at and displaying jackets she thought I might like. I kept my hands to
myself, trying to prove that I am not a barbarian. The saleswoman was shocked
that we insisted on returning the pants. She said she would never have
refunded the money. "Your friend should have checked her bill, she should
have looked in her bag," she said, explaining that everyone in Italy
knows that you check the bill and count your change before you leave the
store. You don't go back later to sort out your mistakes. "You expect too
much." - by Jeannie Marshall
NATIONAL
POST 4 Dec 2002
SPORTS
FASHION
Luxury companies are getting
into Sports Fashion in a big way. Desginers have jumped in on the sports
bandwagon with progressive technically advanced fashions. Some
highlights:
- Prada entered the Louis
Vuitton Cup sailing in red and silver Prada Sport ensemble, a lighter,
breathable version of sailing gear
- Asprey & Gerrad's
2.5 kg sterling silver dumbells cost ~$5,675 USD
- Gucci's snorkel mask and
flippers with their trademark logo
- Moschino's iridescent
silver windbreaker outshines the competition
- Hyp
fashion sense for women's golf
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